Naval Service
PO1 Boone first shows in US Navy Muster Reports Show his sqaudron being transporter aboard the USS Prince WIlliam leaving San Diego on June 14, 1943 and his rank at that time was AOM3c (E-4) or Petty Officer 3rd Class. He arrived somethime after that at Naval Air Station Maui, Hawaii
On June 29, 1943, the squadrom was once again transported via the USS Panay from NAS Maui to NAS Pearl Harbor. for possible departure on a carrier. Muster reports do not show PO Boone again untile he being transported on November 5, 1943 from Maui to Pearl Harbor for assigment on the USS Intrepid with the rank of AOM2c (E-5) or Petty Officer 2nd Class. His next Muster that he shows up is being received on the USS White Plains on Febuary 25, 1944 from the USS Intrepid to Pearl Harbor. His final Rank was listed as AOM1c (E-6) or Petty Officer 1st Class on that muster report. No futher records were available.

Civilian Life

Richard Allen Boone was born in Los Angeles, California, to Cecile Lillian (Beckerman) and Kirk Etna Boone, a wealthy corporate lawyer. His maternal grandparents were Russian Jewish immigrants, while his father was descended from a brother of frontiersmen Daniel Boone and Squire Boone.

Richard was a boxer, college student, painter and oil-field laborer before ending up in the U.S. Navy during World War II. After the war he used the G.I. Bill to study acting with the Actor's Studio in New York. Serious and methodical, Boone debuted on Broadway in the play "Medea". Other plays followed, as did occasional TV work. In 1950 20th Century-Fox signed him to a contract and he made his screen debut in Halls of Montezuma (1951), playing a Marine officer. Tall and craggy, Boone was continually cast in a number of war and western movies. He also tackled roles such as Pontius Pilate in The Robe (1953) and a police detective in Vicki (1953). In 1954 he was cast as Dr. Konrad Styner in the pioneering medical series Medic (1954), which was a critical but not a ratings success. This role lasted for two years, but in the meantime, he continued to appear in westerns and war movies.

In 1957 he played Dr. Wright, who treats Elizabeth for her memory lapses, in Lizzie (1957). It was also in that year that Boone was cast in what is his best-known role, the cultured gunfighter Paladin in the highly regarded western series Have Gun - Will Travel (1957). Although a gun for hire, Paladin was usually a moral one, did the job and lived at the Hotel Carlton in San Francisco. Immensely popular, the show made Boone a star. The series lasted six years, and in addition to starring in it, Boone also directed some episodes. He still kept busy on the big screen during the series' run, appearing as Sam Houston in the John Wayne epic The Alamo (1960), and as a weary cavalry captain fighting Indians in A Thunder of Drums (1961). After Have Gun - Will Travel (1957) ended in 1963, Boone hosted a dramatic anthology series, The Richard Boone Show (1963), but it was not successful.

Boone moved to Hawaii for the next seven years. During this time he made a few Westerns, including the muscular Rio Conchos (1964), but he was largely absent from the screen. In the 1970s he moved to Florida, and resumed his film and TV career with a vengeance. In 1972 he again appeared on television in the Jack Webb-produced series Hec Ramsey (1972) (years before he had played a police captain in Webb's first "Dragnet" film, Dragnet (1954)). Based on a real man, Hec was a tough, grizzled old frontier sheriff at the turn of the 20th century who, late in life, has studied the newest scientific theories of crime detection. His new boss, a much younger man, doesn't always approve of Hec, his nonconformist style or his new methods. The series lasted for two years. Boone continued working until the end of the decade but died from throat cancer in 1981.
Bio from IMDB.com

Other Comments:"As a distant relation to Daniel Boone, Richard sometimes sported a coonskin cap as he manned his rear turret during flight operations."

(Information, quote, and picture from Stars in Blue: Movie Actors in America's Sea Services, by James Wise, Jr, and Anne Rehill.)